5 Habits of an Effective Social Media Manager

The role of the social media manager has changed over the past few years—from learning new platforms to responding to customers online, each day can be vastly different. Social media management plays a crucial role in maintaining your brand’s integrity and it’s even more important today to make sure you’re effective. Embrace some of these techniques and strategies to ensure your brand remains top-of-mind amongst all the social noise.

1. They Set Clear Goals and are Driven to Achieve Them

Each month be sure to set clear goals for yourself and for your brand’s social performance. After all, without goals, you will likely get caught up in daily tasks like posting and creating content. However, in order to truly grow social channels organically, it is important to keep the following in mind when setting goals you can stick to.

Make them SMART

SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Instead of saying “I want more followers next month”, set an achievable number and select a deadline for yourself. For example, setting a goal of adding 100 new followers in the month of June holds yourself more accountable to the growth of your channels. 

Base them off performance

Reviewing your social media performance ensures you are creating the best social strategy possible and evolving it over time. By analyzing optimal posting times, impressions and engagement rate, you can set monthly and quarterly goals that are effective and attainable. 

Ensure they feed your organization’s goals

When setting goals, make sure to consistently ask yourself how that goal will directly benefit your brand management and business. How would gaining those 100 new followers for the month of June help increase your ROI? How does it benefit your bottom line? Answering these questions will ensure you’re working towards goals that make a difference and an impact within your organization.

2. They Keep an eye out for Sources of Inspiration

In order to foster an online community, it is imperative to pay attention to not only what your audience has to say, but what other brands are posting as well. If you aren’t observing what competitors or other brands are doing, you’re missing the opportunity to grow and expand your community and social strategy. Set aside time everyday to take note of what your audience is talking about and audit your competitors’ feeds. If you aren’t socially aware of other brands and news that impacts your community, you aren’t being effective. Take a step back, listen, and learn. 

3. They Focus on Building a Community, not Just an Audience

While every social media manager knows that impressions and engagement are key metrics, it’s important to prioritize fostering an engaged online community that listens and trusts your brand. Of course you want more followers, but strive for quality over quantity. As a social media manager, it is important to know inside and out who you want in your online community and what that audience wants to hear. Oftentimes, social strategy falls on deaf ears when the social media manager can’t form a brand community, only able to preach to a brand audience. 

A community is built on mutual trust. Your audience trusts you through the humanization of your brand voice. They feel a connection to your products, your voice, and your mission. While an audience simply views your content, the community digests it, processes it, and connects with it. They keep coming back for more. It is vital to be present, respond to messages (good or bad), and give thoughtful support. Your community can tell when you’re being genuine or when you’re being fake.

4. They Know Their Audience and Brand Voice

Building a strong relationship with your online community is key to effectively message all that your brand has to offer. In order to do this, you must embrace and know your buyer personas inside and out. Who is your target audience? What are their interests? What do they do in their free time? What pain point are they trying to solve when purchasing your product? In order to build an effective social strategy, you must have solidified answers to these questions. Become your target audience.

5. They Look for Opportunities to Reach a Bigger Audience

Consistent, quality engagement with your social fans is a pillar of a solid brand marketing strategy, but making sure that content lands with the right people at the right time can be a challenge. Look for ways to syndicate your brand’s content on multiple social media pages, not just the ones you own. ThumbStopper is a social media automation tool that creates custom curated feeds for your content and syndicates directly to the social media feeds of your local retailers.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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[/et_pb_column]
What Is Social Media Automation?
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
How Effective Is Your Social Media Strategy
[/et_pb_section][/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
[/et_pb_column]

Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
What Is Social Media Automation?
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
How Effective Is Your Social Media Strategy
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